One can not talk about this exhibition without mentioning, Total Recall (1987). Many consider this to be her magnum opus. Running 18.2 minutes long with 11 channels connected to 24 screens, and 3 projections, this video piece is a fully immersive experience. Much of Bender’s work appropriates television: news, commercials, entertainment programs; all designed to brainwash consumers into... consuming!
Total Recall is loud, and bombastic. Capitalism is everywhere; branding is everywhere. It is in your home; it is in your purse; it is in your mind. Audiences figuratively (and physically) sit in the dark where they are most vulnerable. Bender’s screens appear to be the only light within this abyssal visage. It certainly helps when your viewing is informed by a can of Red Bull, glistening at the entrance. To be honest, that artificial boost of energy, actually allowed me to hone my focus, enhancing the experience.
Bender’s work taps into—dare I say—primal fear. To delve into such heavy topics requires immense mental dexterity: emotional stamina. History repeatedly disservices female artists by asking them to display their trauma for carnivorous art buyers; gallerists acting as the butcher. Perhaps, part of Gretchen’s erasure stems from her conscious uprising. She rejects victimhood. Gretchen Bender confronts society with violent truths: the normalization of dehumanization—the economization of individual, and collective, pain. Fear simultaneously feeds off, and fuels, the Freudian death drive. When the artist holds the mirror to our meager faces, oftentimes we shy away.
Curator: Maxwell Wolf, and Associate Curator: Kenta Murakami, breathed life back into Bender’s deathless corpse for a new audience. Now more than ever, these uncomfortable truths hold a deeper truth. Information is viral; and it becks the question: which data holds the most weight? How can we decipher, and delineate? Much of Red Bull’s restorative efforts, include contemporary interpretations, or news reels, reminding us that society never changes. Oppression changes form (rebrands), and releases its radio signals into our psyche once more.